Brexit: Creative Industries

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones on introducing this important debate. Many years ago, I was a teacher and I very quickly became disillusioned by participating in a system based on the industrial production line model of education. I started to develop ways of catering for the needs of individual pupils, not least to allow them to develop their own creativity. Later, as an MP and my party’s education spokesman, I wrote a book on the importance of developing creativity in education. It was not very good and is now out of print. But my passion for the need to insert the power of creativity into our education system is undimmed, and it helps explain why I am such a passionate supporter of the creative industries.

My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and others have already highlighted the vital importance of the creative industries to our economy and our country’s future. I will not repeat all the statistics, but it is clear that the creative industries are a huge success story, punching above their weight. It is also clear that they have benefited enormously from our membership of the EU. These benefits are put at significant risk by the hard Brexit announced by the Prime Minister on Tuesday. Indeed, finding some glimmer of Brexit-related light for the creative industries is hard to come by, although I recommend, at least for a good laugh, “Brexit the Musical”, which I saw last weekend at the excellent Canal Café Theatre. Funny though it was, it intensified my worries about Brexit and Tuesday’s speech by the Prime Minister did little to allay them. It is clear that if the creative industries are so important we must, at the very least, ensure they have a voice at the top table during negotiations.

As Sir John Sorrell says, the creative industries are now,

“a key driver of wealth and global success”,

and imperilling them would, he went on,

“imperil our wider economy. That is why we need to be at the heart of the … government’s industrial strategy and negotiating priorities in coming months”.

Yet there is scant evidence that the Government are taking the creative industries seriously. As Monday’s Evening Standard said, the creative industries do not get much of a look-in—they certainly did not in the Prime Minister’s speech on Tuesday. The Government have promised to push hard for trade deals with the EU on the car industry and on the pharmaceutical and financial sectors. So far, no such promises have been made for the creative sector, and the DCMS Secretary of State is not even on the Government’s main Brexit committee. This does not bode well for the creative industries.

The negotiations will have to cover many matters, not least employment and skills. The creative industries have a higher than average percentage of non-UK EU nationals working for them: 10% of the publishing workforce; 25% in visual effects for film; and as high as 30% in computer gaming. All currently benefit from being able to attract a skilled workforce from the EU, from their variety and diversity and from the collaboration that freedom of movement has enabled. Already, uncertainty over the status of EU workers and the lack of clarity around future immigration policy has made it more difficult for them to attract the talent they need since the Brexit vote. I continue to believe that the best way to resolve the uncertainty is to remain in the single market, but if the Government insist on leaving, they must explain how they will resolve the uncertainty.

As the Creative Industries Federation said after the Prime Minister’s speech,

“the willingness to continue to welcome the ‘brightest and best’ begs the question as to how that will be interpreted in future as the UK updates its outdated immigration system”.

At the very least, we must surely guarantee the status of skilled EU nationals now and in the future. The Prime Minister says that she wants to deliver this, but she must do it quickly. Contrary to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, uncertainty already means that some are leaving, and it is getting harder to attract new talent from other EU countries to fill vacancies and support continued expansion. The Government should follow the clear advice of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam.

We also have to address homegrown skill shortages. The Prime Minister talked of reforming our schools to achieve this, as if schools had not seen reforms enough already. Instead, she should look at funding and at reforming the curriculum. The Government have failed to protect funding on a per-pupil basis; it is now predicted to fall by 7.5% by 2021. Despite the need for creative subjects for a wide range of careers within and beyond the creative industries, entries for GCSEs in arts and creative subjects have fallen significantly, not least since the Government failed to include them within the EBacc. The EBacc is now interpreted as a signal of what matters and what is best for young people, and creative subjects are not a priority. This is leading to a mismatch between education policy and industry requirements. We surely need to unleash the creativity of pupils. We should learn from the recent writings of the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, recognise the importance of digital skills to the creative industries and take action to tackle the huge shortage of such skills.

Some good things are happening. There are changes to the IT curriculum to introduce coding. The BBC’s “Make it Digital” and micro:bit are helping people to get creative with coding, programming and digital technology. Today, on the day it launches its digital marketing strategy with Minister Matt Hancock, I especially welcome the efforts of “Do It Digital”, a not-for-profit, business-facing campaign to share, signpost and celebrate all things that help small businesses get more out of digital.

However, more is needed. With 10 million adults lacking basic digital skills, it is simply not a good enough response for the Government to announce free adult basic digital skills training but then expect it to be,

“funded from the existing Adult Education Budget”.

Without intervention beyond what is currently scoped, it is estimated that there will still be 7.9 million adults without basic digital skills in 2025, and surely—and I hope the Minister agrees—additional action to upskill our workforce must be taken before we introduce measures to cut the supply of skilled people from the rest of the EU.

Without action in this and many other areas raised by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones, the creative industries post-Brexit will be in severe difficulty. Sustaining their current position will be hard enough; expecting further growth will be unrealistic. To ensure that these issues are addressed, the creative industries must be given the priority they deserve during the negotiations and a seat at the top table.